Are you happy?

Yesterday, I had quite the day at the building of teeth.

I tripped through the whole bloody concrete tower with my old lady cart.

First, the orthodontist to take out my wires and elastic chain for the dentist.

Next, the dentist to put my crown back on that fell off during my last visit to the orthodontist.

Then up to the surgeon.  This was fun.  Brain injury looked at the floor in my contacts list about twenty times and couldn't figure out which floor to get off at, so I just bounced from floor to floor until I recognized the door.  So, then I had my surgery check up and he showed me my exercises for opening my mouth more.  OUCH.

After that I went back to the orthodontist to get my 2 back brackets put back on, my little hookie thing that holds one of the three elastics I have to wear, and then my elastic chains and wire were put back in.

I fucking hurt. 

I woke up with huge chipmunk cheeks.

I do not feel pretty.

I'm bitchy.

Hurricane Andréa is kicking up a storm and I don't feel like writing anything today.

However, I am going to therapy again today.  Let's see what she pulls out, shall we?

Doesn't feel like it's going to be the best day for me to stay positive.  Today will be work.

When I wake up in pain in both my mouth and my bitch of a back, I know there's going to be a Pain Med Party later on.

Yesterday I didn't need to take any pain killers.  I'll make up for it today.

Right now, I'm just trying to get through my coffee and eggs without screaming.

At anybody.

At anything.

Anyway, enough whining.

I have to go get ready for my 'short bus'.

Then it's off to talk about all the nasty things I've had to deal with in life.

It fucking sucks that we have a bad thing happen, then it's up to us to barf out the demons later.

I hate puking.

I don't want to deal with all this shit.

I was perfectly happy ignoring it and looking to the future, not the past.

However, I suppose if I want a healthy relationship with Papi, I need to work on this stuff.

I really am only doing this for our marriage. 

My love said, "I wish you were doing this for yourself."

Yeah, I'm not really.

Yet, in the end it will benefit me, no matter what.

Even if it feels like crap right now.

Hell!

I got clean and sober to try to make someone else look bad, ...

... long story ... different blab/blob ...

... but after all was said in done, the only person who benefited was little ol' me.

So!

Even if I am only doing this for Papi, it will be good for me none-the-less.

Ok.

My cup of artificial positive thinking has kicked in and I'm ready to fake my happiness until it truly comes back.

i deserve to be happy

Objects in the mind are not as big as they are imagined.

As Papi and I were getting ready for the gym, I had the opportunity to stare lovingly at the gorgeous naked body I will have to say goodbye to.

My love has an appointment for top surgery.

I also found out that I can take some unpaid 'family days' so that I can take care of mi esposo for the first few days where Papi won't be able to lift those tattoo clad arms any higher than 5 inches.

i cringe at the thought of this pain ...

My love told me it would be wise to look at the videos of how to be the care taker.  Not only so that I'm prepared for the task, but also so that I'm not surprised at the gore. 

good fucking god!  breathe ... breathe ...

I guess this is a good idea.  Now I have to find a time where that 'strength' people seem to see in me will come shining through, and I will feel that I can actually witness this.

I'll get there before June 2nd. 

less than 2 months ... my poor heart

There was a momentous moment in my day, however.

I SAW IT!!!!!

Papi came wandering down the hall au naturel while I was brushing my pearlies, "Do you wanna see it?"

I almost choked on my toothpaste, "Now?!?!"

"Well you said you'd like to see it in a non-sexual setting."

"Yeah, but right now?!"

"Why not?"

I battled with my mind that was forcefully saying 'don't do it!', then leaned down preparing for the most terrifyingly massive 5 Foot Clit in the world.

it's going to swallow me like a venus flytrap!!!

When I saw it however, I was surprised at how it looked.

ummm ... definitely not what i was expecting

"Oh!  Well!  It's actually quite pretty!  It looks like a blooming lotus!"

All the fear of the unknown dissipated.  I felt the warmth of peace envelope me in a spine tingling cloak.  All the words of my Other Person telling me it's not as big as I thought it would be instantly became truth.

All of a sudden, my emotions deepened into a place of content and love.  It was as if my love became more desirable to me.

It's not that there wasn't enough desire before, I have plenty of that for my love.  It was only that this one little body part that was previously giving me so much fear, had now become something I wanted to see again and again.

Something's going on for my love hormonally, and there's a lack of libido.  Papi will give me my pleasure if I want it, but mi esposo isn't interested in entertaining that side right now.

I'll tell you though, on the next round, I'm demanding it.

It was the most beautiful blossom.

I have to remember this moment as a teaching experience, yet again.  I really do blow things out of proportion in my thought process.

The fear of the unknown is the most terrifying thing to me.  I must remember that phrase that I tell people time and time again:

Everything works out.

It always does.

A Festering Abscess

I didn't get to feel the prick of my skin and see the ink flow.

I didn't get to feel the pain of beauty, only the pain of love.

Relationships are hard work.  When we hurt one another, there is often an underlying message that isn't coming through, there is only a ball being volleyed back to our side of the net.

Papi was holding in the hurt that I inflicted, but it burst through the knife of the tongue.

The monotony of tree after tree on our ride down to Seattle was broken by hateful words.  "I blame you for not letting me give Smokey kibble when he wanted it.  I think that's why he died."

The blade punctured my heart, but I added pressure the pumping blood as long as I could.

maybe Papi was experiencing the upheaval of withdrawal?

I tried to let it go.

Easier said than done.

By holding it in, I became contentious and less than tolerant with every person who had the unfortunate meeting with the demon that was now speaking for me.

I had my dark cloud again.  That bastard was held fast above my head.  Nobody can see it, but they can damn well sense it.  We are, after all, intuitive animals.

During my wait for the tattoo that never happened, I got down to work on my computer and did some long overdue clean up.

Papi said, "Well, while you're just reading, why don't you read the FtM Sex Guide I sent you."

I've been avoiding it.  I thought it would be a way for partners to discover the new found body that has been entered into the relationship.

Wrong.

It was just a transgendered person talking about their clit.  I was so uncomfortable and felt it was an attack on my trying ego.  My soul is working so hard just to be at peace with where I am 'right now'.

'Right now', I'm not ready for this.  'Right now', I'm just getting used to the fuzzy peach moustache and wispy chin hairs.

'Right now', I'm accepting the changes in my life that are happening because of this transformation.

When I met a potential new friend at the gym, I called Papi my husband.  It felt wrong.  It felt awkward.  But most of all, it felt like the right thing to do, so that they would consider mi esposo as a male figure right from the gate.

When Papi asked me about the guide and what I thought, the dark cloud rained upon me and words slipped out on that now slick runway.  "I thought it would be about sex, but all it was, was a platform for the guy to talk about his clit like it was a dick.  He'll never have a dick.  He wasn't born with a dick.  It's a swollen clit."

my dagger stabbed repeatedly in an effort to defend myself, after being told i killed my love's cat.

The fucked up part?  I was irritable because Papi blamed Smokey's death on me, which came from Papi having resentment because I made jokes about the full body binder that mi esposo received in the mail.  I retreated in repugnance when my love put a fake penis in to this article of clothing.  I didn't want it anywhere near me and that was agitation thrown at my love because of the fact that Papi had used drugs.

Do you understand the vicious cycle here?

You can go back further and further and try to find the initial culprit of pain, but it doesn't matter.

We realized that the wounds we force upon one other are going to have to be spoken about right away.

If not, they will fester, and I'll wake up with swollen eyes from crying all night long.

It's just not pretty, that vision in the mirror this morning.

We have to clean these wounds before they become abscessed.

S/He

The pronoun.  Feminine, masculine.  It tells us what gender category to put someone in.  Society needs to know if someone is a girl or a boy.  We keep our minds organizing people into little boxes to appease the 'norm' that we've been accustomed to.

don't fuck with my order!

For me, I'm trying not to use any label at all.  I just call my love by name.  But, I feel like some high school kid who's got her first relationship and all they ever do is say the name over and over and over.  It's a bit of a tongue twister, and I'm sure people are starting to notice.

It's really hard.  Let me tell you.

Then there's the times when I slip up.  I go on autopilot and forget to concentrate on what I'm saying.  For a person with brain injury, maintaining this much focus is bound to fail in mere minutes.

However, there are times where I'll use it to my advantage.  If I think someone is even remotely homophobic, it's a pleasant relief to say, 'my husband'.

But, it still feels so damn alien.

I flipped back and forth yesterday in a conversation with the road side assistance.  Said 'my wife' on the phone to call for service, and 'my husband' when the vehicle showed up to give me comfort and get me on the road again.

goddam car ... you really only have battery issues when i'm the one driving.  you jerk!

On that back and forth trip to Seattle, on one of the monotonous highway drives of tree after tree, Papi said to me, "You called me 'she'.  I know you're not ready to say 'he', but just saying when you are, I'd like it if you could."

here it comes ... papi is going to start demanding i use the right pronoun ... i'm not ready to let my 'wife' go just yet.

My love cringes if I call us lesbians.

(for the record, i fucking HATE that word.  dyke sounds so much better, but people get all weirded out by it)

I said the 'L' word the other day to friends when they didn't have room on their schedule for our tattoos.  Tongue in cheek, I played the gay card, "Apparently they're too busy to make appointments for lesbians!" and immediately looked to see if Papi heard.

nope.  phew!

When we were at Ikea getting our kitchen island, the man at the self-serve cash lineup called mi esposo 'sir'.  I almost blurted out a correction.  I stopped myself and went along with it, grinning, almost as if I had the world's best kept secret.

It was kinda fun actually.  It felt like I was playing make-believe.  I smiled like the Cheshire Cat.

There are times when people use the feminine pronoun for Papi and I get squirmish as well though.  I wait patiently for my love to correct them, but Papi never does.

The problem is, if my love speaks, people figure out that it's a female voice.  It truly is the clincher in this deal.

Oh, and for the record, my love has told me that it's not a '5 Foot Vagina'.  It's actually a '5 Foot Clitoris'.  I have been corrected.  Apparently, it only grows about an inch as opposed to the centimeters that most of us gals are born with.

This morning, while reading my blog, I hear from the living room, "I hate it when you call it the 5 Foot Vagina.  It gives me such a gross vision in my head!"

That's right my love.

That's why I'm scared.

Time for an expedition.

It hurts Papi that I'm scared.

I don't ever want to be the one to hurt my love.

I suppose it's only balanced that if I'm hurting, then my love gets a dose of the poison as well.  We do share the same thoughts, after all.

My love just wants me to explore, and feels crushed that I won't go anywhere near the growing 5 foot vagina.

I know logically it's not going to be like that, but my brain is a funny thing ... even without a brain injury, I have always jumped to worst case scenario.

If you know me personally, I'll do my best to have you believe that most of my reasonings are positive thoughts.  It's a defense mechanism to battle my pessimism.

When I first got clean and sober, I wrote positive affirmations in a little red book all day long.  When a bad thought would come in, I'd write it out as a positive.

Eventually, the words that left my mouth would come out like that too.  I trained myself to switch the negative to the positive.

It worked for many parts of my life, and soon I realized that I don't need to be afraid of the emptiness of the future, because everything works out.

i hate the unknown .. i like order ... i want control dammit!!!!

If I look at every horrible, difficult, heart wrenching time in my life, I can see that they indeed have all worked out.

I do get my fair share of disaster around the twists and turns in this existence.  I get a little more doom than the average person, so I've had lots of practise.

I guess all the adversity is to prove to that scared little girl inside that she doesn't need to worry about what's in store for her, because it will all work out.

ok little one ... stop fretting about the fact that the universe never ends and go to sleep ...

It always does.  One way or another.

However, it's the 'other' that haunts me now.

I can make positive affirmations all I want, but the terror that my 'wife' is leaving me, replacing that wonderful person with a stranger to my eyes, is much too real.

I just keep staring into the smokey blue peepers of mi esposo and the positive comes back.

Those gorgeous windows to my love's true nature are the positive prove that everything is going to be ok.

"Can I just explore without any sex attached to the experience?"

Papi looked surprised, "Yes!  I didn't mean for us to have sex!  I just want you to see how it looks before it gets any different.  It will be too much for you then if you wait too long.  You need to watch the changes."

"But I can only deal with one thing at a time.  I can't take all of it at the same time."

My love understands, yet Papi's tears were being held down in agony, with the realization that the woman mi esposo loves is afraid of one aspect of the body that used to be cherished from head to toe.

I have to go on an expedition.

It's time to rediscover the embodiment that surrounds that beautiful spirit I love so much.

Time to take a step on that path.

Balance, don't fail me now.

Quite the day, I'll tell ya.

"Don't you think you should touch it before it becomes something that will traumatize you?"

Meekly, I answered, "I'm too scared."

the 5 foot vagina is coming.

Papi tried to reason, "It's just a swollen clit."

Ok, maybe it is.  Been there ... had that, but I just wanted to enjoy the fact that I'm not being triggered every time we have sex.  I just wanted to enjoy Papi.

don't take this away from me my love!  i just got you back!

At the beginning of this day, Papi woke up and told me we're going on a road trip.  Just a day trip, but to beautiful Whistler mountain, only a few hours north.

Brain injury prevailed.  I forgot that we were going to a higher altitude, which means snow.

duh!  it's a fucking ski mountain!!!

With my mind being so much more simple now, I dressed for the Vancouver weather outside my door.

Goddamit it I was fucking cold up there, but it was so beautiful.

It was during my putting shoes on that Papi wanted to bring 'it' up.  Tears welled as I told my love it means my 'wife' is getting closer to leaving me.

"I just don't want to lose you so fast."

please don't cry!  i want to look pretty for our day trip.

Mi esposo was standing talking to me while I was sitting.  I felt like the child was being scolded.

"Can you please sit, sweety?"

After getting out the words about my love leaving me by taking more hormones, Papi surprised me with, "If it's hurting you this much, I'll talk to my doctor and see if I can stay on this dose."

We'll see.  Papi HAS promised other things about the hormones before and reneged.

Off we went, with dogs in tow, to the great white north!  I'm a terrible Vancouverite.  It's only the third time I've been to Whistler and it's right in my back yard!

Well, it's mostly because I don't ski, but you don't really have to be a skier, snowboarder, etc to see this beautiful corner of our province.

After the dogs had their day in the snow,

(oh dear one eyed retriever, how sweet it is to see you roll in the powder ...)

... it was time for dinner, and we had a really shitty experience at the first restaurant.

Papi had time to accost me about 'it'.  I froze again.  I could only answer my love's questions with nods of the head, or shaking it back and forth.

Most of the time it was a nod of the head, due to our being able to know what the other is thinking now.  It's creepy!!

Now to the second restaurant, filled our bellies, and with sleepy dogs, we began the drive home on that long windy highway, yet more processing commenced.

"I don't think you should come with me to the appointments anymore."

"But I want to support you!"

"But it traumatizes you every time you go.  I can bring someone else."

"Then I won't feel like I'm the one supporting you."

Very gently Papi said, "But sweety, you kinda don't support me in this anyway."

dagger to my heart

In the silence, knowing that this would have hurt me, my love said, "I know you're trying really hard, and you're doing really good, but do you have to put yourself through more difficulty?"

I just can't imagine not being there for every step of this journey for my love.  Even if it kills me, I just don't know if I could handle it being someone else that Papi uses as the support person.

It was a lot of dealing for one day.

Today I have to let my heart take it all in.  What a day.

Let's talk about sex

So, it's time to put the adult content warning on my blog.

Papi thinks I should be on anti-anxiety medication.  Oh, that's not why we need youngins to have consent to read this.  I promise I'll get to that shortly.

Anyway, I doubt my doctor is going to go with giving me this medication.  I asked for medicinal marijuana for my back pain and was confronted with a very large no, "We're not going down that route."

Hell, I must be a well recovering addict, because I took her 'no' as gospel.  If I wanted to be the practising addict, I'd just go and hook myself up with some off the street and cook it myself.  I still remember how to do that.  The brain injury didn't knock that one out of my head.

I obey you, oh goddess of medicine.

However, I know damn sure that if I asked for one of the 'pams' for anxiety, she'd look at me with her head tilted down and eyes looking up, bearing a hole into me with invisible laser beams like a librarian who's given too many 'shhs' to a certain individual.

That would be a 'no' as well.

Besides, I'd like to be able to get through all of this without relying upon magic pills et al.  I'm on enough right now as it is.  I wouldn't want to go back a step in feeling like a walking pharmacy like I did for a year after the accident.

Jeeeezus!  I was jacked up pretty good then.

Yesterday's anxiety was that Papi isn't going to love me after the male transformation.  It's like I think that all of what my love stands for is going to be erased.

Some of this stems from the love encounter we had where mi esposo smelled like a stranger and I was feeling like someone else was on top of me.  I wasn't in a great place to be going and having sex, but we did it anyway, and I admitted the feelings to Papi.

Those feelings, combined with a certain person sobbing uncontrollable for weeks on end, brought our sex to a halt.

I know that my love will have changes to another body part that I just haven't mentioned yet.

Clitoris.

Oooh ... scary adult content ... but I don't need crazy mothers going postal on me and having this blog taken down for talking about a natural body part.  They freak out about my love's bare breasts bad enough!

My love's clit will grow because of the hormones.  I really don't know why this instills fear in me, but it does.  It's just another part of that poison that makes me feel nauseous.

I tried using my humour about it with mi esposo in hopes that my brain would take it lightly.

"You're going to have a 5 foot long vagina!"

Papi liked that one.

Yet, this is one of the changes that has me  **ahem**  a 'little' dismayed and here's where it gets complicated; stress.

I'm stressed about Papi's 5 foot long vagina and my love is stressed that I'll be stressed during sex.

We're stuck watching this hamster wheel turn around and around.  Nobody wants stressful sex!

I desperately asked, "So now what do we do?" in hopes that Papi had the answer.

I received a delicate, "I don't know."

I know there's women out there that are absolutely thrilled about transgendered people.  I mockingly call them 'tranny chasers'.

They could swoop right in with their sex machines revving and pull mi esposo into a twirling maelstrom of lust, and I just sit here thinking about the 5 foot long vagina.

The paranoia of Papi no longer loving me went up a notch last night.

My love took a pain killer that doesn't work so well with Papi's emotions.  Every time that demon of a pill gets put into mi esposo's blood, I reap the negative effects.

It seems that when Papi takes this pain med, signs of impatience about my lingering brain injury appear, and I'm left in sorrow because there's nothing I can do to speed up this process of healing.

Last night I was left in tears and walking as quietly as I could in hopes that I could magically walk on air, possibly continuing to the stars.  I'm still too weak to defend myself.

I jumped straight to Papi has fallen out of love with me because we're having a little blockade about sex, that the age old 'lesbian bed death' has arrived, that Papi will no longer desire me because I'm stressed about making love.

Mi esposo ensured me through the apologies that the crankiness was strictly due to the pain meds.  I know that this is the same thing that happens every time Papi takes those, but this time there's more involved.

Where do we go from here?  This has to be healed quickly, because I'll tell you, I desire my love more than anyone I've ever been with.  Our connection is so strong, that even during our lull I think about sex with Papi every day, and when we have those sweet kisses I feel the electricity.

We can't lose this.

There is so much work to do around 'it', but I've got to work fast.  I need to keep mi esposo's sexual attention before one of the Tranny Chasers snaps it away from me.

Last night, Papi read my blog and answered my question about the prize at the end of the maze.

I don't get a cookie.

Papi said, "You get me."